Sword Art Online - Re:Start
by DxDBourne
Summary: Sword Art Online. A game that was created by none other than Akihiko Kayaba that caused mass death around Japan. The Medicuboid. a medical machine also created by Akihiko Kayaba created to help cure people with terminal ilnesses. But since Kayaba has "died", hospitals are failing to figure out how to properly use the Medicuboid, So there's only one way to find out.
1. Foreward

Sword Art Online. A game that was created by none other than Akihiko Kayaba. A game that pretty much revolutionized the VRMMORPG industry. A game that killed four thousand innocent people.

The SAO Incident caused the NerveGear to suffer in sales and in general use. Most of those who were lucky enough to have survived SAO have almost never touched it since then, some have even thrown it away. Not out of anger, but out of fear. To make things worse, those who weren't apart of the ten thousand unlucky participants never even went near a NerveGear for the longest time. People have resorted to safer options, the most popular one being the AmuSphere.

Now, 13 months after SAO came to an abrupt end, the NerveGear has almost been completely forgotten. The few people left who do still have one haven't touched it for months and have most likely forgotten that they have it. Akihiko Kayaba and his creations are slowly fading from existence.

However, despite Kayaba's mysterious disappearance and apparent "Death", That doesn't mean his expansive mind isn't affecting the world even to this day. A machine called the Medicuboid has made itself known to a small percentage of the world. The Medicuboid is a machine that is also a piece of FullDive technology developed souly for medical purposes. It's used to improve the quality of life and help treat terminally ill patients.

It isn't something that's particularly new to us though. A girl, Yuuki Konno, was diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome at a young age. To save her, the government decided that she would be the first person in the world to use the Medicuboid, and although it succeeded in keeping her alive, it never made her condition any better. So, as a result of failing to know how to use the Medicuboid properly, The government have only one option. Ask the creator how to use it himself.

* * *

 **Wow, already 2 follows. To everyone who reads this Prologue/Foreward: i have already written a lot of the story in advance but i want to make sure i get close to the end so that i can follow a certain release schedule without fail. So Chapter 1's unofficial release date is September 10th. However, i may have to delay it once or twice if i'm not as far through the story as i want to be. But thanks for being interested in the Prologue. And make sure to follow, favorite or review it so that you can keep track of when it gets released. :)**


	2. Invitation

**AN: Alas, it has finally arrived! i'm terribly sorry for the week long delay but i managed to get quite far through the story. I'm gonna keep this quick and say more at the bottom of this unfortunately small chapter. But thank you so much to all the people who have followed the story when it only had the foreward. And thank you for deciding to give my story a go!**

* * *

"Hey! Suguha! I'm home!" Kazuto Kirigaya yelled out. Moment's later, Suguha Kirigaya came rushing around the corner of the doorway to the kitchen with an apron on. Giving Kazuto the feeling that dinner was already being made.

"Kazuto! Where have you been? You were suppose to get home an hour ago!" She said with a frustrated look in her eyes, which suddenly turned to a teasing look and small signs of jealousy. "Let me guess, you were out with Asuna, weren't you."

"Wow, Sugu. You can read me like a book." Kazuto said awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head with no answer to give her. Once Suguha had prepared their meal, they both said their thanks and started to dig in to the fresh potato salad that was their dinner. After a few minutes, Suguha suddenly realised something. Kazuto noticed the change in expression and asked her about it.

"Is something wrong, Sugu?" He asked with his mouth full of lettuce.

"I forgot to tell you something." She said as she got out of her chair and walked over to the kitchen bench. Kazuto saw her grab a piece of paper and walk back over to the table with it. "Or, I guess saying I forgot to give you something would be more appropriate." She finished as she handed her brother the object.

"An envelope?" Kazuto said as he looked at it intently, discovering that there was no details on the front except for the word "Confidential" which was written in bold letters.

"The person who delivered it was reluctant to give it to me, but I managed to get it off him eventually on the condition that I leave it on the kitchen bench and not touch it until you got home. Whatever it is, it must be quite the secret if you're the only one who's allowed to read it." Suguha said as Kazuto stared at the letter with hesitation on whether to open it or not. Eventually he decided to wait until he was alone to open it and continued to eat his dinner with his cousin. Once they were done, he gave his plate to Suguha.

"Thanks for the dinner Sugu. I'm going to go open this envelope in my room. I'd rather open it when I'm alone, if you don't mind." He said as he slowly walked towards the stairs to the second floor of his home where his room was located.

"If you need me, I'll be watching television!" She shouted up to him before he closed his door. Once sat on his bed, Kazuto didn't open the envelope and instead just stared at it for a bit.

 _'_ _What the hell am I getting myself dragged into this time.'_ He thought to himself as he finally opened the envelope.

* * *

 _Dear Kirito_

 _I apologise in advance for sending this to you on such short notice. I have no doubts that you'll have some complaints with that._

 _To make a long story short, I want to talk with you. There's something that I need your help with. I was going to give you the details via this letter but I'm sure you have something to say to me._

 _So come and meet me at the usual restaurant early tomorrow. You know where to go._

\- _Kikuoka Seijirou_

* * *

"Of course it's him again" Kazuto said as he let out a sigh. "I'll go anyway, but if this is anything like the last time we talked then I'll make sure to refuse his cry for help. Seriously, can't he find a single other person to do his dirty work for him?" After speaking his thoughts aloud, Kazuto went to bed. He tried to sleep but was plagued with thoughts on what Kikuoka had in mind for him. The next day, Kazuto made sure to wake up an hour earlier than normal, had a quick shower, and left the house before Suguha woke up. On his way to the restaurant he got multiple calls from her. "She's worried. No surprises there" Kazuto chuckled. As he walked into the restaurant, he was hesitant on whether to hide his face from Kikuoka or not. Of course if someone needed help, Kazuto, or in some cases Kirito, would be the first to step up. But Kikuoka had a thing for getting him into dangerous situations. After retreating into the bathroom to think it over for a bit, Kazuto decided that he would man up and at least hear what Kikuoka had to say as he washed his face with water from the sink. "Here goes nothing" Kazuto said as he opened the door to the dining room.

"Ah, Kiri- I mean Kazuto. Over here!" A middle-aged man wearing a dark green suit with glasses and nicely combed hair called over to Kazuto, almost calling him by his in-game name in the process. Kazuto sighed a reluctant sigh as he made his way over to the table and sat down. He planted his face into the restaurants food menu and waited for Kikuoka to talk. But no words came out of the man's mouth, which annoyed Kazuto greatly. Eventually, he got sick of waiting.

"Are you going to tell me why I-"

"Shush!" Kikuoka quickly interrupted Kazuto with a whisper as he finally looked up from his menu. "I'd rather not talk about it until all of my guests have arrived. Until then, order anything you want. It's on the house." Kazuto was blindsided by this but ordered the strawberry smoothie with extra whipped cream and an extra cherry on top, seen as his mouth watered when he first looked at it. As he waited for his smoothie though, he wondered what Kikuoka meant by 'All my guests.'

" _I'm pretty sure that it means that another person has also been summoned here by Kikuoka, but who on earth could it be?"_ Kazuto thought to himself as his smoothie arrived. "Thank you!" He told the waitress who brought it out. But as he turned back to drink his smoothie, he saw a familiar person walk into the restaurant. The petite young girl with long chestnut coloured hair whom Kazuto calls his in-game wife and IRL girlfriend waved at him as she walked over to his table.

"A-Asuna, what are you doing here?!" Kazuto said with a panicked stutter.

"Good to see you too, Kirito" The girl named Asuna Yuuki replied with a dissatisfied smile as she called him by his in-game name, the only person who's allowed to do so. Kazuto put on an apologetic expression until, as she sat down next to him, he asked her something.

"Wait, so did you get the letter too?" He asked

"Yeah, my mother told me that a package had arrived and she put it in my room while we were out together yesterday." Asuna said. Kazuto nodded as the same kind of like thing happened to him. "She also said that the people who delivered it refused to leave until it was in my room and the door was locked. Seen as only I have the key to my room, I'm the only one able to open it." She finished.

"Funny, the same thing happened to me. Only the one who delivered my one was a little more trustworthy with Sugu." Kazuto said to her in somewhat of a reply. Suddenly, Kikuoka slammed his menu shut and fixated the glasses on his face.

"Right then. Now that we're all here, allow me to explain the details of the contents of those letters I sent you." Kazuto and Asuna's expressions hardened, as they prepared to listen to what Kikuoka was about to say. As he did though, Kazuto temporarily thought about how Asuna's presence had made him more calm and considerate about the situation. He felt more willing to accept a cry for help now that she was there. "Now, I'm sure both of you still remember the Sword Art Online incident, right?" The moment they heard that name, they both stiffened up a bit. "Well..." Kikuoka looked around him for a second before asking his question. "...What if I told you that you had to go back into that game?" The moment those words had finished coming out of his mouth, Asuna slammed her hands on the table and shouted.

"We would say no!" She spat out. Causing everyone in the restaurant to look at them. She laughed awkwardly as she sat back down.

"Asuna?" Kazuto asked quietly.

"S-sorry. I just did that out of habit I guess. But it's not hard to tell why, right?" She looked at her boyfriend as she asked that. Kazuto nodded his head in her direction. He definitely sympathised with her. He felt the exact same way but managed to keep his feelings towards the game hidden.

"Yes, I can understand your sudden outburst…" He paused for a moment as he readjusted the glasses on his face again. "…But it's kind of hard to have a private conversation now." Kazuto looked around him and found that everyone was still looking at them. He sighed deeply as he finished his smoothie in silence. When they were done with their meals, Kikuoka took the two to his car and drove them to a café.

"We'll be able to have a private conversation here." Kikuoka said as he got out of the car.

"But how's a café any more private than a restaurant?" Asuna asked him. Kikuoka did not answer the question though and instead, led them into the café in silence. As they walked through the door, Kazuto noticed that the café's open sign was off. Meaning that they were walking into a closed café. When they got inside, the only other person in the café was an old lady who Kazuto assumed was the owner. Kikuoka pulled a piece of laminated paper out of the inside of his blazer and showed it to the old lady. After seeing it, the old lady kneeled down and turned something. An unlocking noise was heard throughout the building and, after tipping his hat towards the old lady, walked towards the wall to Kazuto's right. After pushing on the wall for a few seconds, a part of the wall started to rotate open like a door. Once it was fully open, Kikuoka gestured for Kazuto and Asuna to enter the room. Kazuto hesitated slightly as confined spaces weren't his forte but Asuna didn't need to think twice about entering the room. Once Kazuto walked in and looked around, he realized it was basically just another room of the café but with no windows and very few desks. Once the door was closed, Kikuoka answered the question that was on the verge of coming out of Kazuto's mouth.

"This room, if you're wondering, is a secret room built by the government so that their employees had a private place outside of the main building to talk. That old lady out there, Mrs Nozomi, is a retired government officer." Kikuoka pulled out a chair and sat down. "Sit, please. Let us continue the conversation." Kazuto and Asuna sat down once more.

"So?" Kazuto asked impatiently

"So, I guess it won't help to beat around the bush a bit since we don't have any food to wait for so I'll get straight to the point. You remember Akihiko Kayaba? How he went missing and was presumed dead?" Kazuto nodded as he felt sweat being formed in his head. "Well, point is; we need him. Dr Kurahashi wants to make the Medicuboid known to the world and let people use it in their own hospitals. However, Dr Kurahashi, as experienced as he is, doesn't know how to fully operate it, and he needs it to work at one hundred percent in order for us, the government, to allow mass production. The problem is, the only person who knows how to work it is the person who created it, Akihiko Kayaba. We need him to tell us how the Medicuboid works in order to get the go ahead for mass production."

"Wait, hang on a minute!" Asuna interrupted. "I thought that the Medicuboid was working just fine. It kept Yuuki alive after all!"

"But did it make her condition any better?" Kikuoka asked her slightly vigorously. Asuna said nothing and just looked to the ground. "Exactly. Since Kayaba was the one who originally had the idea for the Medicuboid, if we can get him to show us how to properly use it then we won't have anymore cases like Miss Konno's. We'll be able to protect people against what would the cause be their inevitable death."

"I…I understand." Asuna said. Kazuto put his hand on her shoulder without straying his gaze from Kikuoka, but he knew that it put a smile on her face.

"I have a question." Kazuto said as he slightly raised his hand. "How are you going to find Kayaba if he's gone missing? And what does this have to do with us if I may ask?" Kazuto asked the logical questions as Kikuoka adjusted the glasses on his face once more.

"I can answer both those questions with one answer." He said as he took a quick breath. "I'm not the one who's going to find Kayaba. You are." Both Kazuto and Asuna looked at him dumbfounded for a second until they reacted.

"how the hell are we suppose to find him!" Asuna yelled

"How about you get off your lazy ass and find him yourself!" Kazuto shouted

"Now now. Calm down for a second. I for one don't have much to do with this apart from getting you on board. The rest is Dr Kurahashi's problem." Kazuto and Asuna sat back down in their chairs. "Now, on to the topic of Kayaba's whereabouts." Kikuoka stared at Kazuto for a bit after he said that, which made him uncomfortable.

"Well?" Kazuto asked, getting all the more impatient. Kikuoka let out a giggle.

"Come on Kazuto. Think about it." He said mischievously

"Think about what?" Kazuto asked curiously

"What is the one place that you think Kayaba will be. Where is the only place that you know where you'll find him for sure. Think about it." Kikuoka said as he raised his hand and pointed his index finger to which he then made a swiping down motion as if he was opening a menu. The moment he realized it, the painful truth suddenly dawned on him.

"N-no way! That's not possible." Kazuto stuttered out in a multitude of emotions.

"So you finally figured it out?" Kikuoka said as he sat up on his chair.

"Figured what out?" Asuna asked, confusion sweeping her off her feet. After maintaining his sanity, Kazuto gave her an obvious hint.

"Asuna, do you remember who the main boss on the 100th floor of Aincrad was?"

* * *

 **DAT CLIFFHANGER DOE! I WONDER WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT! FIND OUT NEXT WEEK WHEN CHAPTER 2 IS UPLOADED. (This story will be weekly until i catch up to where the story is at right now.) THANK YOU FOR READING X3**


	3. Calm Before the Storm

**AN: Quick little note, bare with me this chapter. It's not an eventful chapter but it is important to the story. Also, soz for the 3 day delay lol. Thanks for reading, enjoy!**

 **(I DO NOT own SAO or it's characters! SAO and it's characters are all owned by Reki Kawahara)**

* * *

"Asuna, do you remember who the main boss on the 100th floor of Aincrad was?" Kazuto asked her. The fact that she didn't reply immediately told him that she was already too shocked to talk for the time being.

"One more question." Kazuto said with a strange struggle "How are we suppose to get to the 100th floor if we don't have any floors to climb?" He asked. He briefly thought about New Aincrad that was now floating above the world of Alfheim but that one was programmed in a way that changed all the bosses so there was no point in trying that.

"I'll tell you how." Kikuoka said "Recently, while investigating the Kayaba case, our data team discovered something that Kayaba was obviously trying to keep hidden. They discovered the original seed code for Sword Art Online." Kazuto was once again shocked. "They've already transferred the seed code to the world seed and we'll get the go ahead to start this mission once you agree to help us. I'll give you the rest of the small details if or when you do. And don't worry, we'll let your friends go with you two on this mission." Kikuoka stood up and extended his hand towards Kazuto. "So, will you help us find Kayaba?"

"I promised myself that I would rid my mind of that game forever. I wanted to forget it ever happened. Honestly, the thought of the game, let alone going back into it, makes me feel sick to my stomach." Kazuto said this with his head down, but as he lifted his head back up he shouted "But if it's for the greater good, if my actions mean that less people have to die in this world, then sign me up!" Kazuto grabbed Kikuoka's hand and he lifted Kazuto up out of his chair. Asuna heaved a sigh.

"Typical Kirito, agreeing to something without discussing it with me at all" She then put her hands on her hips "But if Kirito's going back into SAO then I won't hesitate to jump in after him! Sign me up too!" Kazuto quickly smiled at his in-game wife and looked back at Kikuoka.

"Now, tell me everything that I need to know."

* * *

As both Kazuto and Asuna walked back to his house, they reflected on the long conversation they had with Kikuoka.

"So, it starts in 2 days and it starts at approximately 12pm. So we all have to be in Alfheim any time before then." Kazuto reminded

"Right, and they've altered the seed code so that death in the game does not mean death in real life. However, the seed code refused to give us no death consequences. So, without accidentally ruining the seed code, they managed to get away with players only losing all their equipment when they die." Asuna added

"Exactly, at least losing your equipment is better than losing your life." Kazuto said as he remembered that four thousand people lost their lives in the SAO incident. "It's definitely going to be difficult to explain this all to everyone else." He said with a sigh as he unlocked the door to his house, when he walked into the living room, he got quite the surprise. Apparently, someone had already invited everyone over to his house. This included Rika Shinozaki a.k.a Lisbeth, Keiko Ayano a.k.a Silica, Ryotaro Tsuboi a.k.a Klein and Andrew Gilbert Mills a.k.a Agil as well as his sister Suguha who is known as Leafa in-game. But that wasn't the reason he was so surprised. "HOW DO ALL OF YOU KNOW WHERE I LIVE!" He shouted.

"Don't worry, I told them all to come here so that we could tell them all at the same time. Asada said she'll be here shortly because she decided to drop by the mental health hospital to check on her old friend." Asuna informed him.

"Oh good idea, that's quite convenient." Kazuto said to her. However, he wasn't a fan of knowing that he'd have to explain to them everthing that Kikuoka had told him. Ten or so minutes later, after Shino Asada (a.k.a Sinon) had arrived, Asuna and Kazuto explained every detail about the mission. Aside from Asada and Suguha, everyone's jaw was on the ground.

"Y-you're telling us that we have to go back into that hellhole?!" Ryotaro shouted in a whirlwind of emotions

"I'll be honest, I really don't like the idea of being in SAO again" Keiko said shyly

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone here has had enough SAO for a lifetime" Rika said with a sad expression.

"Look guys, I'm not forcing you to come with me, I'm not even asking. I'm just telling you what I'm doing and you can't stop me. As long as perma-death isn't a thing and I can still logout then I'm diving straight back into SAO without hesitation, because I'm doing it for the greater good. People will be able to live their lives even if they have an illness of some kind if I manage to pull this off. I'm not doing it for the credit either, I'm not asking for some ill patient to think of me every time they open their eyes each morning. As long as that's what happen's then i'll go through hell and back as many times as it takes to make that dream of theirs a possibility." Kazuto hadn't noticed it, but one by one everyone in the room stood up during his rolling speech and put on confident expressions. "So I'm not forcing, nor am I asking you to come with me. But if you aren't, I kindly ask you to go home right now." He looked around and not a single muscle moved. "So, are you with me then?"

"You know what, that hellhole doesn't sound so bad after all." Ryotaro said as he arched his arms and clenched his fists in agreement.

"Kirito's right, I say we give Aincrad the beating that it deserves" Keiko said as she jumped in happiness

"I won't mind going back at all, as long as I am know I'm going to safely come back to my wife." Andrew said as he gave a heafty laugh

"I wasn't apart of the original SAO incident, but it sounds like fun to see what all you guys went through. Without the threat of perma-death that is." Asada said with a smile. Suguha agreed with the nod of her head. Kazuto looked around at all of his friends. Friends who would follow him to hell and back. He allowed a confident expression to appear on his face.

"I'll see you guys in Alfheim then."

* * *

After finishing explaining everything to his friends, Kazuto walked out the living room where everyone was and headed upstairs to his bedroom. Once he was in his bedroom, he locked the door behind him and attempted to walk towards but fell. His head and arms made it on his bed but his body floated above the floor of his bedroom as his knees took all the impact. After putting up such a front in front of everyone, his façade finally gave and he broke down on his bed. The thought of being back in the real Aincrad made him feel all sorts of painful emotions that he didn't want to feel. Nausea, Anger, Fear, Despair, Sadness, Pain, Disgust, Distrust. All these and more had exploded inside him and he felt worse than he had ever felt before. He tried his hardest to persuade his emotions that there was no threat of dying this time but the trauma that SAO had left him with was too much to bare and he passed out from the suffering. When he woke up the next day, he was relieved to know that the eruption of emotions that came to him last night was nowhere to be found. He didn't feel a thing. "I guess letting it all out in one go really is a big help." He said as he opened his curtain a bit to look at the sun. "Guess I'll be seeing very few of that for a while." He closed his curtain and left his room to have a quick shower. He knew that today was the last day that he had that was completely free because after midday tomorrow, he'd be on a government mission 24/7 until it was complete. So he decided to go game-free today. "Ah, what should I do first today?" He said to himself, but his thoughts were interrupted by someone knocking on the bathroom door.

"K-Kazuto? Is that you? Since when did you start waking up so early?" The voice of someone waiting to have a shower belonged to Suguha.

"I'm just drying off, I'll be out in a second." Kazuto said. After he was done changing, he started to open the door but the moment he turned the knob, Suguha pretty much broke into the bathroom at the speed of sound and kicked Kazuto out before he could even see her. She then slammed the door shut. All of that happened before Kazuto's brain had even registered what had happened. "What the heck was that all about Sugu?!" He yelled in confusion.

"S-sorry, you rarely ever get up this early so…I usually go down to bathroom with no clothes on." She said shyly. Kazuto decided that their current conversation was now over and went to leave the house.

"Oh well, I'll see you later Sugu." He got no reply as he went to open the door. But when he opened it, there was a man standing in the middle of the doorway. It took Kazuto less than a second to realise who it was. "What is it now, Kikuoka?" Kikuoka spoke as he let himself into the house and sped towards the living room. Leaving Kazuto confused in the doorway.

"I'm terribly sorry to barge in like this" he said as he sat down "But I accidentally left out some vital information for you when we talked at that café." Kazuto thought he should've been surprised by this but for some reason, he wasn't.

"And you call yourself a government officer." Kazuto said with a sigh. "What could you have possibly missed out." Kikuoka readjusted the glasses on his face before speaking.

"You will be using the NerveGear for this mission." Hearing this, Kazuto flinched.

"Hang on a minute! Why can't we use the AmuSphere?!." He asked with his voice considerably raised

"Because." Kikuoka paused very briefly before continuing "If you use the NerveGear, my data team will be able to talk to you from the real world. For some reason, the AmuSphere and everything after it don't have this thing called an ExoLinker. It uses brainwaves to send text messages to the in-game chat box. Meaning that we can talk to each of you individually via chat if you use the NerveGear."

" _This just keeps getting better and better"_ Kazuto thought sarcastically as the distress on his face started to become clear. "We can't catch a break, can we." Kazuto said out loud. He intended it to be a rhetorical question but Kikuoka answered it anyway.

"I highly doubt any other problems will come your way from now on. That was the only thing I left out. I'm sure of it. All we have to do is link our computers to the wireless ExoLinker installed in your NerveGear and we'll be able to talk to you and you should be able to reply. That is all." Kikuoka said as he stood back up. As he walked past Kazuto to leave though, he whispered something "Enjoy today while it lasts." He then walked out of the house and disappeared. Kazuto wanted desperately to ask him what he said but by the time he had comprehended it, Kikuoka was nowhere to be seen. Kazuto decided to go off on his merry way, hoping that it would free his mind of yet another thing to think about. He drove his motorbike around town until he made up his mind on what to do. Eventually, he decided to ride to the beach as it was probably the best place to get as much sun as possible before spending a whole heap of time stuck in his room again. When he arrived, he noticed that he wasn't the only one who had that idea. Both Rika and Keiko were there playing volleyball and Asada was sleeping on the sand. For some reason, seeing them there too made him feel slightly more at ease. Rika called out to him once she noticed.

"Hey! Kirito! Nice of you to join us!" She shouted, causing Kazuto to sigh faintly. After hearing her, Keiko turned around and waved at Kazuto who waved back. Asada, who was sleeping with a book covering her face, woke up and waved at him as well. After politely turning down the offer to pay Volleyball, he went and sat down next to Asada. She looked at him and smiled but the smile that Kazuto returned was pretty much shouting 'Please ask me if something is wrong.' To Kazuto's relief, she took the bait.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" She asked him as she sat up more straight.

"More than just one thing." Kazuto said with a sigh. "Kikuoka came to me again just now and told me that there was one piece of information that he left out in our original conversation."

"Oh? And what's that?" Asada asked as the flame of curiosity started burning inside her.

"Well…I'd rather tell everyone at the same time." He paused for a second but forced himself to continue before he was ready. "Kikuoka told me that the new SAO is not compatible with the AmuSphere."

"Really? That's odd. But, how will we play it then?" She asked as she put a hand to her chin.

"They told me that the new SAO will only work on the NerveGear system." Kazuto forced out. He kind of braced himself as he expected her to be shocked beyond belief. But that's not what he got at all.

"Is that so? Then I guess I'll finally know what it's like to wear one then." Kazuto was extremely surprised by the calm reaction he got until he realised that she was not one of the ten thousand people who got stuck in the original SAO. After that, he and Asada agreed to play Volleyball with Rika and Keiko. Needless to say it was almost a complete shutout.

* * *

"I can't believe we lost so badly." Kazuto said as he accompanied the girls to the bus stop.

"Hey, at least we managed one point." Asada said, trying to cheer him up.

"Come on Kirito, what did you expect? Me and Keiko play sports all the time and both of you barely do any sports at all. Our win was kind of inevitable." Rika said confidently, Kazuto agreed with her but he still thought he should've done better. When they arrived at the bus stop, so did the bus. So, after waving them off and watching the bus go off down the road, Kazuto got back on his motorbike. But before he drove off, he took one long look at the setting sun.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He said to himself before realising that a tear had allowed itself to fall from his eye. "Damn, guess I still have some tears left somehow." He wiped away the tear and drove back to his home, where an impatient Suguha was waiting for him.

"You could have at least told me that you weren't going to be in the house all day." Suguha berated him as he entered through the front door.

"I'm sorry Sugu. Truth is, I only decided to go somewhere after I had left. Plus, I left my phone here so…" His voice trailed off because he couldn't continue his lie any farther without giving it away. It's not like it was a complete lie though.

"So that's your excuse, is it?" And of course, Suguha saw right through it. She reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone. Kazuto couldn't do anything except smile awkwardly. "I swear, sometimes you are impossible. Where were you this whole time." Kazuto had nothing he could try except for the truth. So he surrendered.

"I was at the beach with Rika, Asada and Keiko." He said with a defeated sigh.

"What?!" She suddenly yelled with a red face. However, she tried to save herself by continuing "T-then why didn't you invite everyone else s-so we could all enjoy it." She said with her face still red.

"Y'know, that would've been a good idea." Kazuto said obliviously. "Well, I'm going to my room to do some…Research on some stuff. Call me when dinners ready." Kazuto immediately realised how suspicious the line he had just spoken sounded so he bolted up the stairs before Suguha could question him. It was true that he did want to look at stuff on his computer (No, not that kind of stuff you perv) but the first thing he did when he got in his room was sit on his chair and think. He thought about whether to tell everyone else about the NerveGear thing or not. " _There's a chance that Asada told Rika and Keiko while on the bus._ " He thought. " _Plus, even if I do want to tell them, it might be too late by now."_ Kazuto thought as he looked out his curtain and saw the sun had almost completely disappeared to below the horizon. "To be honest, it doesn't matter. They'll find out anyway right?" He said as he put his headphones on and got lost in his computer screen.

* * *

Meanwhile, in a black abyss. Footsteps are heard coming from everywhere. It is a world where light does not exist. A world that no one would want to be in. However, in this world, a boy stands tall. A boy who has cried his last tear and laughed his last laugh. This boy who walks the abyss, stops and turns to see a familiar darkness turn into a flicker of something he forgot existed.

"How many years has it been."

* * *

As Kazuto woke up from his deep slumber, he took a moment to collect himself.

"This is it. In three and a half hours, I'll be back in the real Aincrad." He said peacefully to himself. Before getting out of bed, Kazuto checked his phone and as expected, he had messages from everyone excluding Asada and Suguha.

"I Though you said that you told us everything, How could you leave out information like that, I wasn't happy when I found out you know." That was pretty much the gist of what everyone said to him.

"Looks like they did find out." Kazuto said with a sigh of relief, getting out of his bed in the process. Kazuto looked at his computer as he got changed and remembered what he had searched up the night before. He headed downstairs to see that Suguha had already made herself breakfast and was lazily sitting on the couch watching the television. "Y'know, I'd give an award to someone if they could look more lazy than you right now." He said with a quiet laugh. But she didn't make a comeback, she didn't even say anything. "S-Sugu?"

"Kazuto…I'm a little scared." She said quietly

"Hey, what's there to be scared about, there's no perma-death this time so it won't be as terrifying as before. Plus, I will be there to make sure nothing happens to anyone." He said trying to cheer her up.

"It's not that. Well, it's not just that." She admitted. "It's the NerveGear. After seeing what it did to you, I'm…I'm starting to have second thoughts."

"It's not going to do that again." Kazuto said with a slightly awkward smile "It's just like any old system, there's nothing to worry about." Suguha then turned to Kazuto and gave him a surprise.

"How can you say that! How can you talk about it like it's just another normal system after it trapped you and threatened to kill you every day for 2 whole years! You, of all people, should be the one who's scared to use it again!" She shouted as she started to tear up. She dropped her head before continuing "How are you not afraid? Where do you get your courage from?"

"Look Sugu, To tell you the truth, I'm absolutely terrified." Kazuto regrettably admitted. Suguha's head jerked upward in surprise. "I'm afraid too. I'm afraid to go back into that world. I'm afraid to put the NerveGear back on. And I'm especially afraid of dying. Even though perma-death is no longer a thing, it's a bad habit of SAO players to fear death no matter what game they play. Especially if it's SAO." Suguha looked at him with eyes of both admiration and sympathy as he spoke "So yeah, I know how you feel." They both stayed where they were for a few seconds until Suguha broke down a little and jumped into Kazuto, who held her in a hug. They hugged in silence for a couple of minutes until Suguha broke it.

"I-I'm sorry about this, Kazuto. I just…wanted someone to embrace." She said shyly.

"Don't be, I'm your cousin, right? I'll always be there to embrace you when you need it." He said as he lightly tightened his embrace, causing her to blush. Moments later, a knock on the door that broke the moment between the two could be heard and Kazuto, to avoid any awkwardness between them, quickly ran to the door to answer it. Upon opening the door, Kazuto saw all of his friends who were carrying what seemed to be stuff for a picnic.

"Hey Kirito, all of us have decided to go out on a picnic since we still have two and a half hours before we need to log in and we were wondering if you and Suguha wanted to join us?" Asuna asked cheerfully.

"Yeah, c'mon man! If you don't come then who'll sit with me and watch good looking babes go by." Ryotaro said as he barged in front of Asuna. He then leaned in and whispered to Kazuto "I would ask Agil but he's too protective of his love for his wife to do that." Kazuto stuttered a bit at Ryotaro's comment but happily agreed to go along anyway.

"I'll catch up with you all shortly, there's just one quick thing I need to finish doing." Kazuto admitted.

* * *

 **Hello all, thanks for reading this uneventful but important chapter. I can promise you that either chapter 3 or 4 will be when they finally dive. On another note, i have a question:**

 **Should i make these chapters short, long or medium(sort of like it is now)?**

 **All answers are much appreciated, the answer that has the most votes by the time the next chapter is uploaded will be the new chapter length for the rest of the story. Once again, Thanks for reading!**


	4. A Familiar Sight

**(I DO NOT OWN SWORD ART ONLINE OR IT'S CHARACTERS, THEY ARE PROPERTY OF REKI KAWAHARA)**

* * *

"I'll catch up with you all shortly, there's just one quick thing I need to finish doing." Kazuto admitted. As he waved off the group that now included Suguha, he closed the door and ran up to his room. He ripped open his closet so fast that everything in it fell out. He tore through all the boxes that had fallen until finally he had found what he was looking for; his old NerveGear system. He had gotten it out because he wanted to see if it still worked well and after plugging it in and turning it on, two of the three small rectangular lights on the upper part of the helmet glowed green and blue while the third one remained off. "Good. I can still use it." Kazuto said to himself. He then procceded to put the NerveGear to make sure that it still fit. Upon discovering that it did still fit him, albiet barely, he went to take it off. Suddenly, his whole world went black for one second and then went back to normal, but before he could comprehend what had just happened, he blacked out again for no more than a second. That time however, in the blackness of the abyss he was in, he could clearly see the silhouette of a human form. The moment he was snapped back to reality, he threw the NerveGear off his head before he could have another strange delusional black out. "W-what…The hell?!" He said as he took a moment to collect himself and his breath. It may have only been a second but Kazuto knew what he saw, he very clearly saw a person in that darkness. But the question of who it was or why he saw them was beyond him. He was lucky enough to have thrown his NerveGear in the direction of his bed, so it had a soft landing. When it landed, the disc tray was ejected and a small disc plopped on to his bed. He didn't need to inspect the disc because he knew what it was. Sword Art Online. The disc itself doesn't work anymore after Sword Art Online was beaten and destroyed. But with the seed that Kikuoka and his employers found, they could, if they wanted, recreate it one hundred percent like the original. " _That black abyss I saw…Was that SAO?"_ Kazuto thought to himself as he put some clean clothes on and went to join the others at the picnic. " _Could that have been SAO trying to tell me something? Nah, it can't have been. How ridiculous is that?"_ Kazuto thought as he waved to everyone who had already set the picnic up.

"It's about time, what took you so long, man! I've been staring at girls all by myself over here." Ryotaro joked as he went to fist bump Kazuto

"Hey, who knows. Maybe I was also staring at babes by myself." He laughed with Ryotaro as he returned the the fist bump.

"One day, we're going to find out that they're long lost brothers." Rika said sarcastically. Asuna just sighed in reply.

* * *

After one hour of enjoying the picnic, Asuna walked up to Kazuto who was napping on the blanket.

"Hey Kirito, do you mind coming on a walk with me?" She asked him.

"Oh, yeah sure." Kazuto stood up and walked down the boulevard alone with Asuna. "So, what's up?" He asked her. It took her a few seconds but she spoke eventually.

"I just wanted to ask you; Are you scared of going back into SAO?" She asked him. Kazuto didn't even think about trying to hide it from her. So he answered truthfully.

"I'm absolutely terrified." He said. "In fact, two nights ago, it was so bad that I couldn't even close my eyes to try and sleep, and I started hurling." Thinking about it made Kazuto's skin crawl. That was definitely not a feeling that he would want to go through again.

"That bad, huh?" Asuna said. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to comfort you."

"N-no, you don't have to be. I managed on my own so don't worry about it." Kazuto said desperately trying to cheer her up. He about to continue doing so but Asuna sudenly embraced him, which rendered Kazuto speechless for a second.

"Would you mind comforting me then." She asked "Even though I wasn't there to comfort you?" Judging by her voice, she wasn't on the verge of crying or breaking down. She sounded completely normal, so she must've just needed to know that someone was there for her no matter what. Kazuto was happy to be that person.

"Asuna, I promise you. I will always be there for you. No matter what happens. I'll never leave your side, ever. Because…I love you. Asuna looked up at him in surprise which gave Kazuto the opening he needed. He lightly grabbed her face and softly pressed his lips against hers. Now, Kazuto's no sweet talker, but he gave himself a mental pat on the back for his successful attempt at it. He knew it had worked because when she realised what had happened, she reciprocated the kiss and wrapped her arms around him. Kazuto has happy that the park that they were in was almost deserted. Otherwise it would have been on damn awkward situation. Kazuto and Asuna held on to their kiss for a couple of minutes before finally letting go. They sat on a nearby bench and just enjoyed the moment in silence. Asuna leaned on Kazuto's shoulder while Kazuto rested his head on the top of hers.

"I don't think I've ever known you to be that bold Kirito." Asuna said peacefully as to not ruin the atmosphere. "I think you should be like that more often."

"Maybe I will then." Kazuto said with a faint chuckle. Seconds later, they heard someone who sounded like Rika calling out for them. They looked down the path and saw Rika running in their direction.

"Lisbeth!" Asuna shouted out to her. "We're over here!" Rika came running over and had a slight look of jealousy on her face.

"Of course I find you two out here alone." She said with puffy cheeks

"What's wrong?" Asuna asked her.

"You guys do know it's eleven thrity, right?" Both Asuna and Kazuto looked at their watches after hearing her and panicked.

"Oh crap, we need to get home fast! Thanks for coming to get us Lisbeth." Kazuto shouted as the three of them bolted down the path. "Is everyone else gone?"

"Yup. Everyone is already is waiting at the building for us." She informed them.

"Thanks Lisbeth, you're a great help." Kazuto thanked her again.

"How about you thank me by taking me out on a date when we get back into Aincrad." She said jokingly. When they got to the point of separation, they quickly said see you soon to each other and started sprinting to the allocated building that Kikuoka had made specifically for this mission. Something else that Kikuoka told them two days ago was that he would be meeting with them in the center of the Town of Beginnings once the transition happened. Kazuto quickly separated from them in order to go home and get his NerveGear. He got to his house in the blink of an eye and shot up the stairs to the upper floor where his room is located. He flung his door open and reached for his NerveGear which was upside down on his bed. It was for but a moment but when Kazuto picked up his NerveGear, he felt lightheaded. He was honestly getting fed up with the trauma that SAO had caused him to develop.

"I'm starting the have second thoughts about this." Kazuto said as he grabbed a small USB stick as well as a little piece of paper that was sitting on his desk. He made his way over to Kikuokas building while frequently checking his watch which told him that he had less than ten minutes before the new SAO was activated. When the building was finally in sight, he got a call from Asuna. But since he was less than a minute away, he decided not to answer it. When he entered the building and found the room he was supposed to be in, he saw that everyone except Asuna and Suguha had already dived.

"Hurry up Kazuto, everyone else is already in!" Suguha urged Kazuto onto his dive bed and then dived herself by shouting the words "Link Start!" Asuna put her NerveGear on as well but before she dived, she saw Kazuto tell Kikuoka something as he gave Kikuoka what seemed like a piece of paper and a USB stick. After brushing it off as just something that Kazuto wanted to be kept safe while they were in SAO, she dived as well. Kazuto got back on his dive bed and looked around at the sleeping bodies of all his friends before putting on his own NerveGear. As he laid down, he saw a little notification in his window that told him that his ExoLinker had been connected to Kikuokas computer. Kazuto closed the window and prepared himself by taking a few deep breaths.

"I'll see you in there." Kikuoka said as he saw his data team arrive. Kazuto nodded in his direction and put his head back down. Kazuto closed his eyes and took a reliving breath as the strange vision he had earlier had not troubled him again. Kazuto opened his mouth to speak and after a little bit of hesitation, he shouted

"LINK START!" And with that, his consciousness faded.

* * *

Soon after, he felt his consciousness re-form, not as Kazuto, but as The Black Swordsman, Kirito. As he look around he saw that he was in the house that belonged to him, Asuna and their in-game daughter, Yui. At the sight of her in-game dad, the small fairy flew over and turned into her normal form so she could embrace him.

"Daddy! You're here!" She said happily as Kirito hugged her back.

"Hey Yui, how are you doing?" He asked her.

"It's been a few days since I last saw you, so I got a little lonely. But Mommy and all you're friends arrived a few minutes ago and-" She suddenly stopped causing Kirito to slightly worry. But she continued before he could say something "Oh wait! I forgot. Mommy told me to give you a message when you arrived. She said, Go to the small island with the single tree on it in the middle of the lake, that's where they're going to wait. I don't know what she means by it but it sounded important." Yui finished relaying the message as Kirito gave her a small pat on the head.

"Thanks Yui. Well come on, they're waiting for us." Kirito said as he summoned his spriggan wings and headed for the door. Yui transformed back into a small fairy and flew into Kirito's front chest pocket before he took of towards the small island in the middle of the lake at break neck speed. The moment he got the island, an announcement appeared in the sky above them as well as a loud voice that relayed the words for people who were underground.

" _This is an important message to all players of Alfheim Online. Alfheim is about to make a transition to a different world. This will mean that those who are still in the game after the countdown that will follow this announcement ends, will be transported into the different game world called Aincrad. Better known as, Sword Art Online. If you do not wish to take part in the second coming of Sword Art Online; Please log out immediately."_ A counter appeared below the announcement that showed the amount of people currently logged into Alfheim. That counter dropped from 11,038 to 7,359 within thirty seconds. " _For those few who are unaware of what happened during the first Sword Art Online event, please refer to the link that will appear in your chatbox shortly."_ No one from Kirito's group received the link but a lot of other people did. And suddenly the user counter dropped from 7,359 to 5,987. The announcement continued. _"For those that have been brave enough to stay logged in, we would like to inform you that, during the second coming of Sword Art Online, perma-death will be de-activated. Meaning that dying in the game will NOT mean dying in real life."_ Kirito looked up and noticed that the counter had pretty much stopped dropping all together at 5,912. " _Everything else will be explained once the transition has been completed. Until then…Enjoy the new Sword Art Online."_ With the end of the announcement, a sixty second timer took the place of the announcement bubble.

"What was that announcement all about? Mommy, what's going on?" Yui asked Asuna with concern.

"Don't worry Yui, I promise I'll tell you all about it later." Asuna reassured her in-game daughter.

"I don't know about you guys but I'm starting to get pumped!" Klein said with excitement.

"For the first time, I actually agree with you." Lisbeth said with Silica nodding in agreement.

"You guys were stuck in this death game for two whole years though. It's kinda hard for me to get pumped when I think about it." Leafa said with worry as she looked at her cousin.

"That maybe be so, but since there's no death threat. I reckon this'll be exciting." Sinon said with a faint laugh under her breath. At this point the timer was at thrity seconds. The user counter had also risen ever so slightly. Kirito's eyes never left the timer for the whole sixty seconds. Because he knew that if he took his eyes away from it for even a second, it would feel like it counted down faster. So Kirito wanted to make these sixty seconds last a lifetime. But alas the timer came when the timer had reached ten seconds left. Every person who was logged in would remember this day as the day that Alfheim stood still. With five seconds left, Kirito spoke some final words.

"Here we go guys, get ready!"

…3…

…2…

…1…

* * *

when the timer disappeared, there was but a moment of utter silence. Suddenly a giant black hole appeared where the timer was in grew instantly to the size of the sun. It shattered Kirito's avatar and enveloped his crystalised shards as the world cracked and spiralled into nothingness. "What the hell, no one told me that that was going to happen!" Kirito shouted until he realised that no one was around him and he was standing in a black abyss. The exact same black abyss that he saw a day ago when put on his NerveGear for the first time in ages. He also attempted to raise his hands in front of him but nothing appeared in his eye sight. He had no body, he was just a floating consciousness. As he tried to look around in a panic, he noticed a silhouette, the same silhouette from before. But before he could even confirm that it looked like a human body, a light appeared and the silhouette was lost in the disappearing darkness. The light suddenly enveloped Kirito's consciousness and started to crack, after the light was close to shattering, it spiralled out of control and enveloped itself. All of a sudden the shattered light that was just enveloped exploded. The explosion, that argued against physics and logic, pulled Kirito's consciousness into it and after reaching the centre he was thrusted into a patch of long grass with a bang. Kirito let out a scream of terror as he looked upward. However, to his strange relief, he saw a familiar set of big waterfalls coming from islands that lay rest on massive pieces of almost floating metal. He slowly turned his head to the left and saw a familiar town in the distance. "No doubt about it, this is definitely SAO." Kirito said as he looked towards the Town of Beginnings.

"Hey Kirito, does this look familiar or does this look familiar?" Said a very familiar voice. Kirito turned and saw what he expected, Klein was sitting down, legs crossed and staring into the artificial sunrise. Just a couple of meters away from him. "This is the same place where you taught me how to play SAO." He admitted. As Kirito did look at him though, he noticed something odd about Kleins appearance.

"Hey Klein, that outfit of yours." He asked

"Yeah? What about it?" Klein replied in confusion

"I may be looking to much into it but; weren't you wearing that same outfit during the 74th floor boss fight?" Kirito asked with something bothering him.

"Yeah. Why?" Klein said, trying to find out what Kirito was getting at.

"What I mean is, if we're restarting SAO from the beginning, then why do we have all of our original gear and stats back?" Kirito admittingly asked as he played with his menu and summoned his Elucidator and Dark Repulser. To this realisation, Klein jumped up from his sitting position and opened his menu.

"Holy crap! You're right! I've got all of my original weapons and armor back. Awesome! I wonder how that happened." Klein played with his inventory while Kirito had a quick think about it.

"Could it be that every original SAO player has all their stats and items back?" Kirito asked Klein who was hugging all his old items.

"Who cares, it doesn't really matter. But hey, at least with this stuff, we'll be able to hammer through at least the first fifty levels without much trouble at all." Klein spoke some logic which caused Kirito to stop thinking about it. Kirito opened his menu to check something but before he could he got a message from someone named Chrysheight, a.k.a Kikuoka.

 _Everyone is waiting for you in the middle of the town of beginnings. Hurry up and get here._

 _"_ Looks like we're the only ones not there. Hey Klein, let's go meet up with the others." Kirito turned to get his attention but he had his back turned to Kirito. And he looked frozen. "Klein? We need to go." Kirito walked up to Klein but he got another message. This one came from Asuna. He read the message as Klein finally spoke to him.

"Kirito, I hate to say this but, I'm afraid we can't log out again." Klein said darkly as Kirito read the message he was sent.

 _Kirito…The log out button is disabled again. We can't log out…_

Hearing this, Kirito went straight to his menu and clicked the log out button. But alas, nothing happened. Kirito rapidly pressed the button multiple times but still, nothing happened.

"B-but I thought…That they changed it." Kirito said as he came to a proper realisation.

* * *

 **Alas, they have re-entered the world of Sword Art Online. However, after realising that they are once again stuck, how is the group going to react? And judging from this, what other possibilities could arise? Thanks for reading! Please Review before leaving.**


	5. Preparing for Adventure

**Kirito and his gang have once again gotten stuck in SAO. However, with perma-death no longer being an issue, how will this effect the resolve of the SAO survivors. And are they really stuck in SAO again? or is there something else going on?**

(I DO NOT OWN SWORD ART ONLINE OR IT'S CHARACTERS, BOTH ARE PROPERTY OF REKI KAWAHARA) (i'm pretty sure i've accidentally re-worded that disclaimer every single chapter now :p)

* * *

"B-but I thought…That they changed it." Kirito said as he came to a proper realisation. Klein finally turned and looked at him with defeated eyes.

"Looks…like we're stuck in here again Kirito. This is a serious case of déjà vu if you ask me." Klein fell back to the ground and sat down. Suddenly, Kirito came to another realisation. He doubted that it would work but he was desperate at that time so he had to give it a try. He quickly took a breath and shouted towards the sky.

"System Command! Log Out User! I.D Kirito!"

* * *

There was a moment of dead silence as Klein looked at Kirito with confusion. Suddenly, Kirito's whole vision was encased in a bright light and with a big flash of light. He was thrusted back into reality and woke up in the dive building. He looked around him and saw all his friends still logged in…No, still stuck in SAO. Kikuoka's data team looked at him with concern and ran over to him.

"H-how did you log out!" Some of them expressed their concern. Then, the leader of this whole mission, Dr Kurahashi, walked up to him.

"The seed's data altered itself automatically and won't let anyone who's using the NerveGear log out. We can't change it while it's active otherwise everyone who's logged in will go into shock and get put into a permanent coma or worse, die." he said.

"Wait, so what your saying is that I'm the only one who can log out due to the GM status that I gained?" Kazuto asked them.

"Yes, that is what we presume. We also heavily doubt that even with your status, you won't be able to log a different user out. But, you can try if you want." the doctor admitted.

"Answer me this one thing. Does this mean that perma-death has been reactivated?" Kazuto asked them with a serious tone to his voice.

"No. I can safely say that the perma-death function of SAO is still off, and we will do everything in our power to keep it that way." Dr Kurahashi announced. Kazuto still had a serious look on his face as he laid back down on his dive bed.

"Make sure to look for a way to enable the log out button while you're at it." He ordered them.

"Will do, good luck." After the brief goodbye, Kazuto closed his eyes again and re-entered SAO

"Link Start!" He shouted as his consciousness was whisked away.

* * *

Kirito reappeared on the scene at the exact place where he had left it, and to his surprise, Klein was still there as well.

"Kirito! How the heck did you do that man? I've been sitting here for five whole minutes yelling the same words that you said and nothing's happened What's the big deal?" Klein question Kirito the moment he had arrived.

"Well, long story short, Kayaba's consciousness gave me GM privileges while I was saving Asuna from Alfheim a while back." Kirito said with a sigh. "I'll tell you the whole story later. Right now, we need to go to the town of beginnings and make sure everyone else is okay."

"Right." Klein nodded in agreement. "But, how do we get there without walking."

"Easy." Kirito said as he put his two swords in the sheaths on his back "We run." With that, he jumped off the side of the floating island that they were on.

"But that's the same thing." Klein whined as he regretfully followed suit. While he was falling through the air, Klein came to a realisation. SAO doesn't have wings so what the heck was going to break their fall. At this realisation, Klein screamed in horror as he made his way towards the ground at speed. Kirito had also realised his mistake but luckily managed to maneuver his way to above a lake. Kirito hit the lake with a big splash and saw that his health bar had drop by a centimeter or so. Klein however, was not as lucky. He hit the ground with a thud and immediately exploded in a crystallised fashion. He had died right in front of Kirito's eyes and for the briefest moment, Kirito had thought that he died for real. After all the shards of data that was Kleins avatar had been blown away in the wind. Kirito forced his way out of the water and made a super quick beeline for the Town of Beginnings because, if the beta for SAO had taught him anything, it was that people who died on the first floor would respawn at the center of the Town of Beginnings. So, in short, he was no the only one who had yet to arrive. He did briefly think about just killing himself as well but ultimately decided that it would probably be too psychologically annoying. So he just ran his heart out.

* * *

Upon finally arriving in the town of beginnings, as well as catching his breath, Kirito found his group of friends, including Klein. When he walked up to them, he noticed that Klein was no longer wearing his armour from before.

"Hey Klein, what happened to your gear?" He asked his now nooby looking friend.

"Well, when I died, I lost all my stats and all my items. I was also put all the way back to level one. Judging from this experience, it seems like there is still a reason to stay alive." Klein said with a defeated tone to his voice. Suddenly he clenched his fists and brought it up to eye level "But hey, at least it's better than dying for real, am I right?" Kirito smiled at his optimistic friend as Lisbeth berated him.

"He would've been fine if he hadn't jumped of a big cliff like an idiot. Seen as Kirito looks fine, he must've found a smarter way down." She insulted Klein as everyone laughed.

"Actually, I was the first to jump off of the cliff, seen as it was my idea in the first place." Kirito hesitantly admitted. "I was just lucky enough to land in a patch of water." He awkwardly scratched the back of his head while he said it. All his friends start at him with dumbfounded looks.

"Yeah, what was I thinking, you two are like brothers from another mother." Everyone laughed at that comment. During our somewhat-of-a-reunion, He noticed that both Sinon and Leafa also looked like beginners. But that was because neither of them played the original SAO so it made sense.

"I'm happy we're all here and safe. But it's still a shame that no one can log out." Everyone's expressions dropped except Klein, who smiled in admiration.

"Actually, that's not entirely true." He said, causing everyone to look at him with disbelief. "Our old friend Kirito can! Kirito, show them." They all looked at him in anticipation.

"Klein, don't put me on the spot like that." He said as he cleared his throat. "System Command. Log Out User. I.D Kirito." And with a flash of light, he was whisked back to reality. Upon returning to SAO he got dazzled looks from everyone.

"That's amazing Kazuto!" Leafa expressed her excitement as well as everyone else.

"Have you tried logging someone else out using your GM status?" Sinon asked a logical question.

"Doctor Kurahashi said that he doubts it'll work, but I'll try it anyway." So he spoke the command again. "System Comand. Log Out User. I.D Sinon." A few seconds after Kirito said it, a notification popped up in front of him.

 _'_ _Your status does not allow logging out other users. Either try again, or ask another administrator.'_

 _"_ Looks like I can only log myself out. Sorry." Kirito expressed his disappointment. "And I'm sorry for making you jump off a cliff like that Klein, I guess the re-using of old avatars was just a one off."

"Hey, don't worry about it man!" Klein said as he put his hand on Kirito's shoulder. "Starting from level one will mean that it'll feel more accomplishing when we beat our way to the hundredth floor. Am I right or am I right!" Klein was the most optimistic about their situation.

"Well, I suggest we all join a party right now. Kirito, you'll be our leader." Kikuoka suggested.

"Good idea." He replied. Kirito went into his menu and started a party. His first couple of party invitations went to Asuna, Leafa and Sinon. "Now I'll invite you Klein." Kirito pressed the 'add to party' button on his menu and instead of a list of players, a notification popped up in his menu.

 _You are only allowed a maximum of 4 members per party._

The sudden notification took Kirito by surprise for a second, but even after re-reading it. He was still dumbfounded.

"That's…strange, I don't remember this restriction being in the original SAO." Kirito said as he scratched the back of his head.

"That's because there wasn't a restriction like that." The white and red clad knight that sported the uniform of the second in command of the Knights of the Blood Oath "With my experience in the Blood Oath guild, I can definitely say there was no restriction like that whatsoever. Some of our bigger parties consisted of up to sixteen people."

"My data team could possibly know something about this change." Kikuoka suggested to Kirito. But he shook his head.

"We can ask them about that later. Until then, lets focus on what's happening in-game." Kirito then looked to Agil. "Agil, I think you should lead the second party."

"I'm not sure if I'm fit to be a leader Kirito. But if you insist, I'll try my best." Agil said with determination. Kirito smiled as he continued.

"A good idea would be for you to stay on the first floor and work on your leadership skills while also levelling Klein back up as much as possible." He suggested.

"What about your level one's? You have two of them. Wouldn't it make sense for all of the level ones to stay on the first floor while the rest get as high up the castle as possible?" Agil had a point in saying that, but he was forgetting something.

"Don't worry about my party, I have GM status, remember? I'll be able to help them even when fighting a boss." He informed Agil.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I guess we'll catch up with you once we've got Klein to level 10 or so." Agil thought aloud.

"Sounds good." Kirito said in agreement. Agil then proceeded to add Klein, Lisbeth and Silica to his party. All that was left was to get the level one's of Kirito's party some decent equipment. And, because he had all his stats and items back, he also had all of his Cor (SAO's currency) back as well. After checking how much he still had, which was a f***ton, he gave Sinon and Leafa each 150,000 cor to buy themselves some reliable equipment. "Okay, Agil. I want you to take Kikuoka and the rest of your party to an open field just to get the hang of battle again. Then, go to Moonlight Dungeon. It's a good place for starters to experience a real battle."

"Understood." Agil replied as he lead his party towards the edge of the town of beginnings.

"Asuna, I want you to take Sinon and Leafa to a good weapons shop." He asked as he started to run towards an alleyway.

"Wait, what about you!? Where are you going!?" she yelled after him.

"There just something I need to check up on. Don't worry about me, I'll meet up with you la-" Kirito was interrupted by accidentally running into someone. Both of them were thrown to the ground with a thud. "Ouch. Hey, sorry about that. I wasn't looking where I was…" When Kirito looked at the user who he had just hit, he saw very clearly that the boy was crying. "H-hey, are you alright?" Kirito asked him, but the boy just got up and continued to run as quickly possible. "The heck was up with that guy" Kirito said to himself, not noticing that Asuna was calling out to him.

"Kirito!? You Okay!?" She shouted from a distance. Kirito stood back up as he replied.

"Yeah, it's nothing, go on without me like I said, okay?" He said as he disappeared into the back alleys of the Town of Beginnings. Asuna let out an annoyed sigh.

"Where do you think he's going?" Leafa asked curiously.

"I don't know, but where ever it is, he obviously has a reason for doing it." Asuna then started walking towards the crowded part of town where all the shops are. "Come on, I know this really good craftsman shop in the centre of the town. He'll hook you up with some decent weapons until Lisbeth gets her shop back." They followed Asuna into the crowd of many people. On their way to the craftsman shop, Asuna happened to be looking to her left and saw a group of people seemingly saying goodbye to each other. What surprised her was what she saw next. All but one of the players proceeded to log out. In an extremely quick manner, Asuna pulled out her menu and went to settings, but unfortunately, the log out button was still deactivated. She wanted to run over there and ask the user how his friends logged out but didn't want to leave Sinon and Leafa alone. Her curiosity very quickly got the better of her and she charged over to the level one player. "You there!" she shouted at him, causing the poor soul to jump out of his skin.

"NO! I WASN'T DRINKING I SWEAR!" The overall wearing player shouted in fright before putting his hands over his mouth.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you jump like that." Asuna apologised.

"It's fine." The user grumbled. "What do you want."

"Well..i just wanted to know how your friends were able to log out. That's all." She said politely, not showing the slight disgust she felt at his rudeness.

"Wait a second" the user said, dumbfounded. "You mean to tell me that you've been playing this game for just as long as I have, are a higher level, and you don't know how to log out?" The user said, holding in a sudden burst of laughter. Asuna's eyebrow was twitching from the sudden burst of outrage that she was stealthily holding in. "It's easy, you just open the menu, go to settings, click the log out button and Bam! You're back in the real world." The user showed her his menu and upon inspection, Asuna saw the users log out button right there where it's suppose to be.

"Maybe it's actually just a bug this time then." Asuna thought aloud, confusing the user.

"W-what's a bug?" He asked curiously. Asuna pulled out her menu to show the guy her settings menu, he took a quick look and watched as nothing happened when she pressed her log out button.

"That's really odd." The user said. "When I press mine, I get a notification that says ' _Are you sure you want to log out of SWORD ART ONLINE?'_ and I can press yes or no. The GM is probably fixing it as we speak so I wouldn't worry about it."

" _Yeah, except the only GM here is Kirito and he can only log himself out."_ Asuna said in her head. "Y-yeah, I guess your right." She said with a convincing fake smile.

"Hey, do you mind if I get your name? Your avatar name I mean." He asked, totally oblivious to the fact that her in-game name is the exact same as her real name.

"Oh…it's Asuna. My avatar's name is Asuna." She said carefully, secretly hoping that he wasn't attempting to hit on her.

"Nice to meet you Asuna, my name's Kami." He said with a nice smile, if he was trying to sway her with that smile of his, it wasn't working. "Well, I'm going to log out now, have fun with being stuck in here, okay?" Kami teased as he disappeared in a flash of light. Asuna was glad he left because he was on the verge of driving her insane. Kirito on the other hand had spotted Sinon and Leafa at a craftsman shop, but Asuna wasn't with them.

"Sinon! Sugu!" he called out as he ran over.

"Where have you been all this time?" Sinon asked him.

"That's…It doesn't really matter." He said awkwardly "Where's Asuna? I thought she was with you guys?"

"She went over to a group of players and talked to them for a while, so we just looked for the shop on our own." Leafa answered in Sinons place. Kirito just gave a quick sigh and put it behind him.

"Well, I'm here now so I'll help you guys with items." He said, they both liked that idea. Some more than others. "First off, your definitely at the wrong shop. I know a shop just around the corner that sells better items for the same price if not less." He said as he gestured them to follow him. After walking about two blocks, Kirito stopped at a run down old building. Both of the girls looked at it with expressions of disgust and confusion

"This is where your glorified shop is?" Sinon asked him questionably.

"Yep, take a look inside, I'll bet you'll be surprised." Kirito said confidently. So Sinon walked up to the door and turned the knob. Upon seeing what was inside, Sinon was definitely surprised. Weapons of all sorts littered the walls and roof. There were swords, axes, spears, bows and arrows, knifes, shields, etc. It was pure heaven for a weapon lover. Being the gun person she was, Sinon went straight to the area closest to what she liked which was the Bow and Arrow area. Meanwhile, Leafa made her way towards the one-handed swords. "You see? Some of these weapons are over 10,000 Cor cheaper than the ones at the other shop you were at, and you can tell just by looking at them that they are in much better shape too." Kirito informed. Sinon quickly picked out a nice, deadly bow while Kirito gave Leafa tips on what one-handed sword to choose judging from her preferences. After buying their starting weapons, as well as decent armour and other such items, the three of them meet up with Asuna, who had been running around the whole town looking for them.

"The least you could've done was send me a PM." She said angrily but out of breath at the same time.

"We kind of forgot since we found Kirito and he took us to a good place. Sorry Asuna." Sinon said apologetically.

"Well, at least you were with someone." She said, looking towards Kirito "Anyway, what weapons did you guys pick?" Sinon went into her menu and equiped her new Bow.

"Mine's the Mk II Wind slasher." She announced "Not only was it the most well-balanced Bow in the store, but it was also on sale for only 80,000 Cor." She said proudly.

"And what about yours Leafa?" Leafa was about to reply to Asuna, but a sudden bright flash of light appeared in the sky above them.

"What the hell is that!?" Asuna shouted in confusion and worry. Suddenly, the flash of light shot a large beam straight towards the ground and landed right where Kirito was standing, even with his otherworldly speed, Kirito had no time to dodge the beam and it enveloped him completely

* * *

 **An unexpected hitch has made itself known to Kirito and his friends, the first fight of the story is on the horizon. But was it really unexpected? or was it planned?**

 **Thank you for reading! Please review before leaving :)**


	6. An Elemental Challenge (Part 1)

**Just warning you in advance, my** **vocabulary may go a little south in this chapter. I was in a rush to upload because i wanted to get this one out a day earlier than normal since part 2 of this chapter will be uploaded only 2 days after this one gets released instead of one week. So i may have rushed my proofreading.**

 **Another thing, i haven't done this in past chapters and i am berating myself for forgetting but, Thank you to all of those who have Followed/Favourited/Reviewed my story so far. Your actions encourage me to keep improving my writing :)**

 **Lastly, i do not own Sword Art Online or it's characters.**

* * *

Kirito had no time to dodge the beam and it enveloped him completely. Asuna shouted out to what was now just a beam of light but got no response.

"Asuna! Look!" She heard Leafa shout to her. Turning to look at the sister of her beloved, she saw her pointing out her her right. Asuna looked in that direction and saw a single other beam of light around one hundred meters away. Two beams of light meant another person other than her husband was being affected by it. Asuna then tried to go into the beam of light to pull Kirito out but the closer she got to it, the faster her health went down, this could only mean that Kirito had already died. Luckily for her, this wasn't the original SAO so she hadn't lost her husband for good. Not only that but he was also the only GM the game had so his death wasn't anything to worry about. After a few more seconds, the beams of light started to fade and upon their disappearance, Asuna confirmed her theory. Kirito was no where to be found, meaning that he, as well as whoever else got attacked, died.

"Thank god that's over." She said with a relieving sigh. Out of habit however, Asuna went to check her friends list. Upon inspection, she was surprised, confused, and shocked at what she saw. At the top of her friends list, where it shows your in-game significant other, Kirito was shown to be alive and well. Not only that, but he hadn't lost a single bit of his health. What made it worrying was that his location was displayed as ' _Unknown'._

"What's happened to him?" Leafa asked, obviously concerned about her brothers health.

"That beam of light wasn't an attack." Asuna informed the two beginners. "It was a form of teleportation."

"Teleportation? So, like a teleport crystal?" Sinon asked using the knowledge she gained from the researching she did a day earlier.

"That would make sense, but a teleport crystal can only transport one person at a time. There were two beams of light." Asuna reminded her. "Also, you saw that I got hurt from it right?" They both nodded with anticipation. "The Town of Beginnings is supposed to be a safe zone. So how was someone able to register a harmful attack here." Asuna asked them, to which they shrugged their shoulders. "Only someone with stats like Kiritos could have done this. We need to find him and make sure he's okay before finding out who did this." She ordered as her old second-in-command habits came back to her.

"Right." Both girls agreed and they set off to find their party leader.

* * *

Kirito's world was just a bright light for a few seconds, until suddenly, he was thrown back into SAO and hit the ground with a mighty thud.

"I'm seriously getting tired of these distorted visions." He said, expressing his annoyance from all the teleportations he's had as he struggled to his feet. He first looked at his party list which showed that all his party members had a long line of question marks where the health bar should be. He made up his mind that they were okay and were probably now looking for him. He then looked around and took in his new surroundings and saw that another player and been teleported there, just like him. Upon closer inspection, Kirito noticed that it was the same guy who he bumped into not too long ago, the guy that seemed to be crying. "Hey, you're that guy!" he said as he examined the player. They had short golden hair that was somewhat messy and curly with noticeably blue eyes. He wore a lightweight black coloured armor-vest over a dark blue pair of overalls. He also wore fingerless gloves and leather boots. What was interesting was that he had a sort of pauldron on his left shoulder and had armaments on either side of his wrists than went up to his elbows.

"That guy? Really?" The user replied in a monotone voice.

"Well, I don't know your name so what else am I supposed to recognise you by?" Kirito asked rhetorically

"The username's Toran and my real name is…" Toran suddenly stopped and looked down to ground for a bit until looking back up and laughing awkwardly. "You know what, don't worry about it." He turned and started heading towards a series of doors. "What we need to do is find out where we are." Kirito followed him as he couldn't think of a better way out. When he caught up to him, Toran was staring and four different doors on the walls. Each of which had a symbol above them.

"Fire, Water, Lightning and Earth, huh?" Kirito said the symbols of each door aloud to help him think about it easier.

"I say we go Earth." Toran admitted. "I've seen things like this in anime and games and for some reason, people always choose either fire, lightning or water. So let's do earth. I mean, come on. How hard can it be."

"I think we should go with water." Kirito suggested. "What's the worst that could happen there?"

"Um, we could drown." Toran informed him in a dumbfounded voice.

"And if we go for earth, we could get crushed by who-knows-what" Kirito said in an attempt to persuade him. Toran put his hand on his chin and thought about it for a moment. But ultimately, he stuck with his original decision.

"Well I'd rather be crushed instantly than drown slowly." Toran admitted to which Kirito couldn't help but agree. There was too much logic to what he had said so Kirito decided on the earth door as well.

"Alright, earth it is then." Kirito announced. The duo made their way to the door and Kirito pushed it open with a mighty heave. Upon opening it, they saw a grassy landscape with trees and rocks scattered around the area. There was nothing special about it, in fact, It pretty much looked like a normal SAO area. The only thing they did notice was a door that had a golden frame and two dark green gems on the top of it. It was about one hundred or so metres away and about fifty metres off the ground. Kirito and Toran looked at each other and took a step towards the floating door which they assumed was their exit. However, after that first step. The door behind them closed suddenly and would not open again when Toran pulled on it. Kirito looked towards the door but instead found himself looking at the many cracks that were appearing on the ground.

"It won't open!" Toran shouted to him.

"Thanks for the info!" Kirito replied sarcastically "But I'm pretty sure we have bigger problems right now!" Toran was about to ask what he meant but he got an idea when a huge crack appeared under his feet and he almost fell through the big hole it formed. He stumbled his way towards Kirito until they were back to back.

"Got any bright ideas?" Toran asked Kirito as the cracks quickly multiplied around them.

"All I know is that we're not safe until we get up to that floating door." Kirito answered as his concentration hardened. Suddenly, an explosive bang was heard and all the earth around them was sent flying into the air. Before they could comment on that, a large crack appeared in between the two and both sides were thrown towards the sky as well. Next thing they both knew, they were levitating. Kirito quickly got his concentration back and came up with a plan. "Hey Toran!"

"What is it!" Toran replied as he stumbled on his floating rock.

"This might be crazy, but I think we have to use the floating rocks to get to the door." Kirito shouted his plan right before his rock started to fall back down.

"That's definitely crazy. But hell, let's try it anyway!" Toran said as his rock split in half causing him to fall to a piece of floating earth below. Kirito found his footing on his falling rock and jumped on to a small rock that started to drop under the wait, Kirito hastily jumped to another small rock and parkoured his way to a large rock that seemed to be safe enough to stand on for the time being. Thanks to his avatars speed and stamina, he hardly came close to faltering the jumps. Toran on the other hand, who although not under leveled, could definitely use a higher level, barely made a jump from one big rock to another by clinging to the edge with his hands. After pulling himself up, he sighed with relief. However, his relief was cut extremely short as he was suddenly attacked and thrown quite down the chasm. A lucky rock near the bottom only barely managed to save him.

"Toran!" Kirito shouted out to him but had to evade his attention to the thing that was about to attack him. It was a wolf of some kind. It had tiny horns on the top of it's head and it's fur was brown all over apart from the paws and the tail which were white. It's fangs were also nothing short of terrifying. The enemy known as an Earth Hound lunged at Kirito who only barely managed to dodge it and it went flying off the edge of the rock he was on. He looked down the chasm to watch the wolf fall to it's death but what he saw shocked him. The Earth Hound had managed to find it's footing on a very small rock and, in the blink of an eye, it jumped from rock to rock and before Kirito knew it, it was right back in his face. He could also see that Toran was having some troubles of his own with an Earth Hound but kept his focus on his own enemy.

Kirito decided to use his GM privileges to end this quickly and went in for a super quick sliced but nothing happened. He went as slow as normal. It was so slow that the Earth Hound already dodged and had gotten behind him before his attack had even finished. It swiped at his back, causing him to lose 10% of health off of his health bar as well as almost make him fall off. Kirito cursed the reliability issues of the GM status he had in his head. The Earth Hound then attempted to tackle Kirito off of the rock he was on, but Kirito expected that and ducked under just at the right time. He even tried to stab the Earth Hound from under it but it was just moving too fast. It once again managed to land on a super small rock and speedily parkour it's way back up to Kirito.

Kirito managed to use what little time he had away from his enemy to check up on how Toran was managing. Because Toran wasn't in his party, Kirito had to look at him to see. What was shown to Kirito was not good. He only had about 50% of health on his health bar, which was now yellow. Kirito hoped that he had some potions or something from his original SAO item list and by some sort of miracle, he did. Quite a lot of them actually. So he summoned one and threw it towards Toran as hard as he could before immediately turning around to block an attack from his enemy. Toran managed to shake off his enemy very briefly by using a strange sort of spell that broke the rock they were on in half and in the time it took for his own enemy to find a way back to him, he managed to use the potion and got his health back up to 90%.

Kirito, as well as Toran, knew that this was fight was not going to end unless they knew some sort of way to kill these things. " _If striking and dodging aren't enough."_ Kirito thought in his mind while barely fending off his opponent. " _Is it possible that we have to outsmart it somehow?"_ Kirito said as he decided to attempt to beat the Earth Hound at it's own game. So when Kirito barely managed another successful dodge, he looked at the nearest rock and jumped on it, then on to another and another. He used his avatars speed to make sure not to fall along with the rocks behind him. He found a good assortment of tiny rocks to act as a tiny battlefield for him and fought the Earth Hound on them. Kirito had never had to carefully watch where he was jumping while maintaining complete focus on his enemy before, it sure was difficult for him and he made the decision that he did not want to do this again.

He used basic sword skills to try and get rid of rocks that the Earth Hound was about to jump on but it used it's extreme agility to either turn around or just jump over it, after getting rid of three or four, Kirito decided that at that rate, he would have nowhere to go either. So he tried to make his way back to a safe large rock but was side-swiped by his enemy and almost fell down the chasm. He luckily landed on his feet on a rock two metres down though. But before he had time to recover, his enemy took a deadly leap of faith and opened it's mouth wide as to bite Kirito's face off. With less than half a second to think about it, Kirito leaned backwards and fell off the rock back first along with the Earth Hound who was inches away from his face. In the blink of an eye, Kirito stabbed his sword into the side of the rock he had just fallen off and basically did a backflip while holding onto the handle of his elucidator for dear life while watching the Earth Hound fall.

Unfortunately, another problem occurred immediately. The Earth Hound that he had just dodged was now quickly soaring through the air towards an unsuspecting Toran, who was already focused enough on his opponent. He was in a lock with his enemy, who he was trying to push away with his sword, but it was quickly biting away at the blade. Toran then went to slice it from inside the mouth but, as if reading his thoughts, it slightly pulled back. Toran quickly used his spell to separate the two of them and the rock split in half. All of a sudden, he heard a yelp and watched an Earth Hound, that looked like his own enemy, fall through the crack he just made and disappear into the pitch black chasm. All three living things in the room stared at the chasm dumbfoundedly. Suddenly, Toran and Kirito heard a small chime and upon looking towards the door, they saw one of the two dark green gems on the top of it light up and turn a bright green. Kirito and Toran looked at each other and nodded. They finally knew what they had to do and how to do it.

Kirito let a confident and cocky smile to appear on his face upon realising that his earlier assumption was actually correct. The issue now was how to get the last Earth Hound to get to higher ground. The enemy was about to lunge at Toran but Toran noticed a piece of earth come shooting out of the dark chasm like a geyser. He jumped on it and lost 15% of his health from the impact. The Earth Hound jumped after him but before it could land on his rock, he used his spell once again. As the both of them fell, Kirito ran up and tackled the falling Earth Hound onto a piece of earth high in the sky. Toran hit landed on a rock below him, lowering his health to 40% which is dangerously close to the red zone. Suddenly, large sized piece's of the rock he had just split open came shooting down upon him. He had but a millisecond until he was mauled by the debris so he used a barrier spell to deflect them. The big piece almost broke the shield but he remained safe from the dropping bits of rock.

He then heard Kirito's voice shout out to him. "Toran! Incoming!" He shouted to alarm Toran of the falling Earth Hound. Toran confidently got into stance and went to activate his special spell. But disaster struck when nothing happened. Toran immediately realised that he was out of magic. Disoriented by this, he failed to move out of the way of the Earth Hound's downward assault and it bit down on his shoulder with all it's might. The deadly fangs dug into Toran as his health went down to 10% and continued to lower slowly. Kirito shouted out, worried for his new friend. Toran barely dealt with the pain as he realised that his enemy was only biting harder. He looked up at Kirito and nodded. Kirito knew what it meant but had no time to save him as Toran latched onto the Earth Hound with all his might and threw himself off the edge of his rock and into the dark chasm. Kirito watched as his new friend sacrificed himself to rid them of their final enemy. The Earth Hound opened it's mouth and pushed itself away from Toran as it cried out in horror. Toran closed his eyes and waited for his inevitable death. A tear crawled out of his eye and he smiled as he waited. Suddenly, he felt as if he stopped falling, and a notification covered his vision. The notification read only this:

 _'_ _Sacrifice? I don't think you've done enough to deserve that.'_

Out of nowhere, a piece of rock threw him upwards. The geyser like rock missed the Earth Hound and it continued to fall to it's death. Toran kept going until he could see the light again and was thrown onto the same rock that Kirito was on.

Kirito looked at him with shock until he got a hold of himself.

"What the heck man! That was way too reckless. I don't know how you got back up here but I sure as hell recommend that you don't try that again." Kirito expressed his hidden concern for his new friend. Toran laughed apologetically before going into his menu and seeing that his notification he got was not only gone but had also deleted itself. So he decided to keep his mouth shut about that. Kirito sighed with relief and saw that the second dark gem on the floating door had turned a bright green just like the first one. The loud sound of a door unlocking could be heard which Kirito immediately realised was the floating door. Floating rocks appeared to have formed a stepping stone like staircase that lead to the floating door as well. Kirito took a step towards the staircase, but heard an alarming amount of growls come from somewhere around them. He looked up and saw hundreds and hundreds of Earth Hounds come barreling down towards them. If only two of these things had been as troublesome as they were, then this many is a guaranteed death sentence. "Run! To the door!" Kirito shouted, Toran had no idea what he meant but he ran like cheetah anyway. Kirito and Toran parkoured their way up the stepping stones and barely avoided so many Earth Hounds. They were being caught up with so quickly that they doubted that they would make it.

"Kirito! I have an idea!" Toran shouted

"If it involves anything to do with you trying to get their attention then forget it. I already told you not to be reckless, remember?" Kirito shouted in reply.

"Just trust me! All I need you to do is give me a potion to refill my magic." Toran asked him frantically. Kirito hastily opened his menu, got a MP bottle out of his items and threw it to Toran. Toran used it on himself and once his magic was full, he ran forward as fast as he could. He even caught up to Kirito until suddenly he stopped. Kirito looked at him and was about to shout angrily about doing reckless things but he decided to trust in his new friend and continued for the door. A dangerous aura surrounded Toran and a black and white sphere appeared in his hands. Many Earth Hounds had surrounded him and lunged at him. It seemed to be the end. Until he extended his hand out in front of him and…

[Oblivion]

All of a sudden, a ball of darkness and light exploded and encased Toran along with every single Earth Hound. After a few seconds, the ball hastily shrunk until it vanished completely and the only person still left was Toran. Kirito blinked his eyes in absolute shock. Until he saw Toran collapse onto the ground after which, he dragged Toran's unconscious through the door and closed it behind him. In the room was a circle on the ground. Kirito quickly guessed that it was a teleportation circle, which annoyed him, and decided to wait until Toran woke back up before berating him on yet another reckless thing.

"If it were me, Asuna would have had my head by now." After waiting ten minutes for Toran to wake up. He decided to just drag him onto the teleportation circle and they teleported away. After another distortion of vision, they found themselves at one of the teleport gates in the Town of Beginnings. Kirito put Toran on a bench and shouted out one of the few commands he knew how to use with his GM status. "Let's hope this is working again." Kirito said as he took a relieving breath. "System Command. Log Out User. I.D Kirito!" And to Kirito's relief, he was thrusted back to reality.

* * *

Kazuto woke up on his dive bed feeling rather dizzy, and all of Kikuoka's data team had run over to him.

"Thank goodness you're okay." Dr Kurahashi said with a playful smile.

"Okay?" Kazuto said angrily. "I'm far from okay! What the hell happened to me?"

"Listen, we understand that something happened to you. We tried our hardest to figure out what was going on and did what we could." Dr Kurahashi said apologetically. Kazuto then calmed down a bit and asked something else.

"Does that mean you're the one who saved Toran?" Kazuto asked him calmly. Dr Kurahashi hesitated to speak for a moment.

"W-who's Toran?" He asked in serious confusion.

"What do you mean, he was the guy who was with me during that predicament. Are you saying you didn't save him?" Kazuto asked the unknowing doctor.

"You weren't with anyone on our computers. According to what we saw, where ever you were, you were alone." The genuinely confused doctor said. "We hadn't the slightest idea that you were with someone."

"I don't believe you. I saw him with my own eyes. I saw him get hurt with my own eyes." Kazuto grumbled angrily.

"Look for yourself. Data tells us that this 'Toran' guy doesn't exist" After hearing Dr Kurahashi's request, he looked at the computer which showed where someone was. The computer didn't know exactly where Kazuto was, and neither did Kazuto himself, but it did show that he was in there somewhere. But, like Dr Kurahashi said, Toran was no where near him. In fact, his indicator wasn't there at all.

"That's not right." Kazuto said in worry as he searched 'Toran' in the search bar. Upon pressing enter, the computer told him that there were no avatars with that name in SAO. "But i…" Kazuto paused for a moment and then got back on his dive bed and shouted "Link Start!" He prayed that Toran would still be there when he arrived back in the Town of Beginnings as his consciousness faded.

* * *

 **Thank you for reading! (i am going to be way more thankful to you readers from now on after the surprising popularity of it.)**

 **I do want to ask you something though: I want to know what you think of my first fight scene. I tried my best to make it as descriptive and enjoyable as possible but i get the feeling that it's lacking something (other than good writing, lol.) So your opinions on the matter, be it positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.**

 **Once again, Thanks for reading! Make sure to review before leaving :)**


	7. An Elemental Challenge (Part 2)

**WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS HOW SORRY I AM FOR SKIPPING A WEEK OF THIS STORY, ESPECIALLY AFTER I SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE UPDATED SHORTLY AFTER THE LAST CHAPTER D': I FEEL ASHAMED!**

 **Nah, but seriously, i do really apologise for the delay. Life had other plans last week and i had no time to upload this. However, tis unfortunate but updates will start to get slower from here on out. We are getting dangerously close to where i have written up to so i want to slow the updates so that i can stay at least one chapter ahead of the story at all times. I'm sorry but i guess you'll all have to get used to waiting :( plus, i am thinking about starting a Fairy Tail fanfic (with absolutely NO Nalu involved) but it won't happen for a bit. If you have thoughts regarding the then please tell me in the reviews.**

 **Other than that, all i have to say is Thank You so much to everyone who has Followed/Favourited/Reviewed the story so far, and thank you to all the readers in general. This story would not be as far as it is without your help.**

 **P.S I do not own SAO or it's characters!**

* * *

The moment Kirito could even open his eyes, he ran towards the bench where he had left Toran and sighed with relief. To Kirito's happiness, Toran was still on the bench. Unfortunately, it seemed that he was still unconscious. Kirito looked in his party menu because he could now see his party members health. He saw that Asuna's was well in the green but not full and Leafa and Sinon's health bars had just gotten to the yellow zone.

"They must be looking for me. Guess I'll tell them I'm okay." Kirito went to send a message but had a thought that this might be good for Sinon and Leafa. Sure, he'll get a good telling off from Asuna but it's good that the other two are levelling up. Leafa was now level five and Sinon was up to level six. He did however have a message from Asuna. He briefly hesitated to open it out of fear but then hastily opened it out of curiosity.

' _Kirito, I don't know where you are but we are looking for you now. We've even got some new friends to help us. Please PM me if you can and tell us where you are.'_

Kirito chuckled as he read it. After closing his menu, he sighed and relaxed by leaning back on the bench.

"We haven't even found the boss room on the first floor and I already feel like I've been through a boss battle." He said with a relaxing smile. "I've lost my touch a bit haven't I, Yui." He asked before realising something. "Oh crap! I haven't brought Yui back yet!" He said while quickly going through his items list and find the item that was Yui's Heart. He summoned it in his hands and touched the middle of it. Kirito didn't know why but that was how it worked in Alfheim so that's what he did again. Suddenly, the tiny item shone until it took the form of a young girl with long black hair wearing a plain white dress.

"Finally, I was wondering when you were going to resummon me daddy." Yui said with a disappointed smile.

"Sorry Yui, I got caught up in a bit of a mess so I kind of forgot." He said with an awkward laugh as he scratched the back of his head.

"I'll forgive you on one condition." Yui said mischievously.

"I'll do anything you ask of me." Kirito said as he bowed apologetically. Yui suddenly ran up and gave him a big hug.

"If daddy takes me out to eat, I'll forgive him immediately." She said with a happy laugh.

"Consider it done Yui." Kirito said as he reciprocated the hug.

"There's also one other thing I'd like to see you do." Yui said in an even more mischievous tone. "And I could help you with it."

"I wonder what that could be." Kirito said obliviously

* * *

Asuna was beat. She'd be lying if she said her skills weren't totally rusty. She thanked whatever it was that had her regain all her stats from the original SAO. Otherwise, she would have already died a while ago. It was also because of the help of, not only Sinon and Leafa, but also Kami, who they had run into on their way out of the Town of Beginnings. He may have also been a beginner but four heads are better than three as the saying goes. They had just finished fighting a large wave of wild boars and low level skeletons and were now headed towards the final room of the dungeon they were in. The other three didn't notice but Asuna could tell that they weren't the first group to come here. They got low loot from every enemy they killed and that means that someone had already taken the first kill high loot drops. Now they got to find out whether the earlier visitors were able to kill the dungeon mini-boss. Upon finding the last room, everyone healed themselves and Asuna opened the door. They arrived in a large circular room with rocks taking up the walls and ceiling while the floor was hardened dirt. There was also a small crater in the middle of the room which confirmed Asuna's suspicions of who the mini-boss was. All of a sudden, rocks fell from the ceiling and clogged up their only exit.

"Guess we ain't going back that way." Kami informed. Then, the crater exploded in a cloud of dirt and a large Earth Troll appeared from the crater. It had three health bars but since this was still floor one, it shouldn't take too much to get one bar down.

"Be on your guard, it's three health bars will go down quickly but just be warned that this troll is still no push over." Asuna ordered. "You can attack it from anywhere but it's weak spot is it's back. Attack at it whenever you can but always be cautious and remember, it's attack patterns will change when it's got one bar left."

"Got it!" Leafa said confidently with Sinon nodding in agreement. Suddenly, Kami ran in to get the first attack.

"Kami! Wait!" She shouted, but he didn't stop and went in for the first strike. His blade hit the arm of the Troll and cut through about an inch of the rock. He ducked under a swipe from the troll and decided that it was the perfect time to roll under the troll. However, Asuna could tell what was coming next. The giant stood up tall and went to sit on Kami.

"Sinon, the eyes!" She said quickly. Sinon then hastily got an arrow out of her sash and bulls-eyed the troll's left eye. It barely did any damage but it made the troll stumble, giving Kami time to escape danger. "Get near the walls Kami!" Asuna shouted. Kami turned to ask her what she said but by that time, it was too late. The troll had jumped into the air and, upon landing, created a dangerous shockwave that hit Kami. His health went down to 50% and he struggled back to his feet. The troll attempted to crush Kami with it's hands but Asuna used her flash-like speed to get him out of the way just in time. She put him down as close to the wall as possible as to keep him from danger.

"Why didn't you listen to me?" She asked as the troll turned it's attention to her.

"I'm sorry Asuna…I'm so useless aren't I. What's the point in saving me, I'll just get in the wa-" His pitiful speech was interrupted by Asuna.

"Sorry, no can do. I've made a vow to never leave a friend behind and I do not plan on breaking that, And you're not useless. A useless person wouldn't have been able to get a single hit on the enemy at all. You did, so you're not useless, you're just…inexperienced." Asuna said calmly. Although she didn't know how to correctly word that last part. Kami extended his hand to her but she didn't notice it and hastily ran back towards the troll who was being entertained by Sinon and Leafa.

Asuna swung around to the back of the troll at breakneck speed and unleashed one of her most powerful sword skills. The sword skill worked like a charm and two of the trolls health bars evaporated instantly. Asuna's feet had barely touched the ground when all of a sudden, the troll used super sonic speed and slammed his hand on the ground where Asuna was. The fact that she was able to almost completely dodge the attck surprised even Asuna herself, though, she wasn't completely unscathed. It's rock hand had slightly grazed her and she was hit by the small shockwave it created. But she barely felt it thanks to her good stats. Her health had also decreased by an almost unnoticeable amount.

Asuna jumped back and Sinon diverted it's attention towards herself and Leafa. Asuna took a second to catch her breath and devise a plan. Sh watched the trolls attacks and constructed said plan around it's movements. Although her combat skills were rather rusty, there was one thing she learned in SAO that she knew she would never forget. Something that, for some reason, she held dear.

Leafa had just run in during the trolls delay between attacks and was about to retreat to a safe distance until she heard Asuna shout something to her. "Leafa! Switch!" upon hearing those words, Leafa managed one more swing of her blade before retreating, only to see Asuna come whizzing by her and land another lightning quick attack. The sudden attack pattern stunned the troll, giving Asuna and Leafa more than enough time for more attacks. "Switch!" Asuna shouted once more. She watched as Leafa charged passed her in no time and landed a solid sword skill that she had just learned which gives the user the ability to land three critical hits in what looks like one blow. This took the trolls final health bar down to about 20% but an unexpected shockwave caught both of them off guard, giving the troll time to recuperate and ready a deadly smash attack. Asuna's speed got her out of there in time but Leafa was no where close to that. The troll aimed his life-threatening attack towards Leafa and attempted to squish her like a bug. But luckily, the troll forgot one important thing.

Sinon had spent her time charging up a bow skill that she learned upon reaching level five and, as the troll had it's back turned to her, she took the opportunity to deliver the finishing blow. She let loose her bow skill on the back of the troll and a large blast came shooting from the arrow, it completely destroyed the trolls rocky back and it exploded in a crystallized fashion. The loot they were rewarded was enough to level up both Leafa and Sinon. Kami also got a small share of the reward as he dealt the first blow.

"Great job on your first mini-boss victory everyone!" Asuna said as they briefly celebrated their win.

"That was only a mini-boss?!" Kami exclaimed "How difficult is the main boss then!?" The three girls laughed as Sinon walked over to the wooden chest that had appeared in the crater where the troll had spawned. When she opened it, a notification box appeared in front of her asking if she wanted the item inside or not. Confused, she asked Asuna what it was.

"Hey Asuna, what's a Shock Gem?" She asked as she pressed the 'Accept' button.

"You found a Shock Gem!?" Asuna shouted in disbelief

"Yeah, what does it do?" Sinon asked again. Asuna managed to reclaim her composure then explained.

"A Shock Gem is one of the extremely rare, other wise known as legendary, magic items. It's one of four other types of Gems, the other ones are the Fire Gem, the Water Gem, and the Shadow Gem. There's only one of each of these gems in the game, meaning that you now have the only Shock Gem in the game. Since it's a legendary item, it's unsellable and you can't trade it either. It's yours for good now." Asuna informed.

"That's Awesome!...But, how do I use it?" Sinon asked as she looked at the shining purple gem in her hands. If she looked closely enough, she could almost see a storm inside the gem.

"Just tap it and press 'use item'" Asuna said eagerly. Sinon lightly put her finger on the purple gem and a notification popped up in front of her asking whether she wanted to use the item or not. Upon pressing the 'Use Item' button, the gem started to crack in her hand. Shortly after, it shattered and a purple mist covered her body. Bits of electricity could be seen in the mist that outlined her body. When the mist dispersed, one last notification appeared in front of Sinon. ' _You can now use Level 1 Shock Magic. Raise your magic level to do more damage by gaining experience from killing enemies with magic. Level ups will happen automatically when you have enough experience.'_ Sinon ecstatically jumped around, wanting to fire her first bolt of electricity.

"Just don't hit us, okay?" Leafa said humourously.

"Are you saying I'm a bad shot?" Sinon said angrily, causing Asuna to chuckle. "I'll show you." Sinon said as she turned around and looked at the wall. It didn't take long for a question mark to appear above her head.

"She doesn't know how to use it, does she." Kami whispered to Asuna. Sinons irritation grew upon hearing him.

"Honestly, I think you're right." Asuna quietly replied to him.

"So are we just gonna wait till something happens or what." Kami whispered again. Sinon had enough and turned around in a fit of rage.

"Shut up for a second, will you!?" As Sinon shouted that, a large bolt of lightning shot out of her forehead and struck the wall behind the three others causing a purple notification to pop up saying ' _Immortal Object'_. From what it looked like, had the wall not been immortal, it would've been absolutely eviserated and could've possibly created a way out. Asuna, Leafa looked at the petrified Kami and sighed a sigh of relief. The bolt that Sinon had shot had been mere millimetres away from his head.

"I-I-I was just trying to get you there, y-you know what I'm saying." Kami said in an insane like chuckle.

"I see. So I use the power by channelling it from my brain then." Sinon said to herself, ignoring Kami's terrified apology.

"Well, shall we get going?" Asuna asked as she noticed that the caves exit had reopened itself. The three girls plus Kami found there way out of the dungeon and basked in the refreshing feeling of an artificial sunset. The three girls laid down on a field of grass while Kami sat at the trunk of a tree.

"Hey Asuna." Sinon said, wanting to say what was on her mind. "When do you think the first floor will be cleared?" There was a brief pause, but just as Asuna was opening her mouth to reply, a loud announcement resonated throughout the first floor.

" _The first floor of Aincrad has just been cleared. Repeat, the first floor of Aincrad has just been cleared. Floor two is now available to all players."_ Asuna sat up frantically upon hearing it.

"Someone's already beaten it!?" She exclaimed.

"Guess that answers my question." Sinon said with a yawn as she continued to lie on the soft grass. Leafa pondered quietly until saying her question aloud.

"I wonder who did it?" She asked curiously.

"Well, whoever it was, they must be quite a high level. Otherwise they…" She suddenly stopped because she had finally put all the pieces together. The other two girls had also realised at the same time.

"""It was definitely Kirito."""" They all said in sync. Asuna gave a sigh of relief.

"Oh well, at least we know he's okay."

* * *

Kirito was on his knees and gasping for air after soloing the first floor boss. Or at least, that's what he would be doing had he not used his GM abilities to curb stomp the poor thing. Him and his helpful daughter gave each other a celebration hug as they walked up the stairs to the door to the next floor. When he opened the second floor door, he found himself on a cliff with a series of winding stairs that lead to the ground.

From where he was, he could see Urbus, the main village of the second floor which lies in a crater with the gates and walls resting on the outer rim of said crater. The main teleport gate rested in the center of the town square which was slightly elevated off the ground. The second floor in itself is a savanna realm covered in plains and boulders. To the north, it's wide open space and to the south, it's a narrow mountainous area. Table top mountains fill the second floors landscape, looming over plains with small caves dotting the mountains that lead to underground rivers. This floor is mostly filled with ox and buffalo-type monsters with a few scattered beetle and wasp enemies. Far to the west, there is a wasteland area. In the original SAO, Kirito decided that that place was very dangerous and decided not to go there. This time, with his GM abilities, he made up his mind to go there this time at some point.

Before Kirito made his way down the winding stairs, he sent a PM to Asuna to tell her that he was on the second floor and heading to Urbus. He also just stood on the edge of the cliff and took in the fresh artificial breeze and sun. He also remembered why the second floor was one of his favourites. The background music on this floor was one of his favourites. He enjoyed the sorrowful tone that that oboe instruments expressed. It made him feel completely relaxed for the first time since he'd been chucked back into SAO.


	8. SPECIAL: Two Years

I am the scum of the earth.

I made promises that I didn't keep and am undeserving of any forgiveness.

November 2nd, 2016. That was the last update, over two whole years ago.

Why do I do this? Why do I start something that I don't finish?

To be honest, it really is annoying because I kind of do want to finish this, but in the two years since I updated it, I've forgotten where the story was going and all my ideas for it. I could never be an author, that's for sure.

* * *

Now please don't pity me, people who don't finish their stories don't deserve something like pity.

But I will say this...There is a chance, a small one but one nonetheless, that I will continue this fanfic with a new story in mind. I've found a new love for SAO in the actual Light Novels by Reki Kawahara so I may just reboot this project. However, if I do, then I will have to change a few things to fit the new story I have in mind.

No promises, no guarantees and a hell of a slim chance. So don't get excited and don't expect anything.

Just know that there is a glimmer of hope

a glimmer.


	9. Reunions

Sword Art Online – Re:Start CONTINUED!

 **Okay, guys, It happened. I finally found some motivation to continue this so here it goes. But first, I must correct and change some issues I found the first couple of chapters. A few examples are.**

 **\- Previously, Kazuto was the only person in his party capable of logging out. I will be changing this as it's kind of a dumb idea and makes it too similar to the actual books.**

 **\- After re-reading the first few chapters, I have decided that Kami's character was a dumb decision and will be making him a one-off character for that fight only.**

 **\- Remember that USB that Kazuto gave to Dr. Kurahashi? I can't remember what I had in store for it so I'm changing its contents to fit my new story plan. It ain't a loss if you don't know what you're losing.**

 **\- Looking back, my use of "Kirito's GM abilities" seemed really cop-out-ish so I'm going to limit the use of those words for absolutely necessary moments.**

 **\- I can only remember small bits of what I had in store for Toran's character development so I'm altering it to fit my new vision for him. I remember how he came to be, I just can't remember what I wanted to happen to him throughout the story.**

 **\- I also had previously put it that everyone who used their own NerveGear had retained all their stats, levels and items. This I have found to be really stupid but because of what I've already written, it's kind of hard to change it. So here's what I've done; Everyone has kept their stats, levels, and items, but all the skills that they learned through any means other than leveling up will need to be re-learned. So for example, Kirito won't be able to use Dual Blades until he re-meets the requirements. But since he's got his stats and levels back, that won't take too long.**

 **Also, I found that I hadn't yet set a timeline for this story. So to save myself the trouble of making my story continuity-free, I've decided to have this set in an alternate timeline where Alicization and everything after it takes place June 2027 and this fanfic of mine will take place a year prior in June 2026. (That's 1 and a half years after SAO ended for all you vets)**

 **The rest of the changes you guys can figure out for yourselves as you read. 'till next time!**

 **P.S I apologize in advance but some of these chapters will be a bit uneventful in the sense of suspense. There will be quite a lot of world and character building in the next few chapters but once I really get a decent way into the story, there will be a lot more action and intense stuff so** bare **with me for a bit.**

 **P.S.S This chapter won't be that long as I actually haven't gotten as far through the story as I want yet before I start posting but hey, it's Christmas so here's a little something to show you guys that I care and this story will continue.**

 **I DO NOT OWN SWORD ART ONLINE OR IT'S CHARACTERS**

* * *

After Kirito had taken in the relaxing oboe instruments, he made his way to the town of Urbus. After entering the gates, he received two simultaneous messages from Asuna and Agil respectively. Asunas one said that they were nearing the newly opened portal to Urbus while Agil's message was about how Klein was now at an acceptable level for floor two. Kirito looked around as people were now starting to teleport into Urbus in troves. Realizing that people would start purchasing Urbus' many houses like crazy, he hurried over to a small house, if you could call it that, on the outskirts of the city and purchased it as a small base of operations. Soon after that, he noticed that Asuna, Sinon, and Leafa had made it to Urbus. After waving them over, they opened the door to the small house and made themselves comfortable.

"Good thing you got here early. If I remember correctly from the old SAO, all the houses in Urbus were sold out completely within a couple of hours," Asuna reminisced with relief.

"Mommy!" Yui shouted with excitement as she flew out of Kirito's shirt pocket and transformed into a young girl before being embraced.

"Yui!" Asuna compassionately replied as she reciprocated the hug. "I'm so glad you're safe,"

"How did you get her back?" Leafa asked her cousin as she looked up from her slouched position on one of the red sofas in the living room.

"Same as I did in Alfheim way back when," he remembered, "She had been turned into an object so I activated it."

"Unfortunately, however, I can't use any commands or make moderations to anything. So I guess I'm not going to be useful at all," she said sorrowfully.

"Don't say that! Just by being here you make me feel a lot better," Asuna comforted her in-game daughter while still hugging her tightly. It was at this moment that Kirito remembered something. He headed towards the door at pace. "Kirito?"

"I'll be back shortly, I just need to check on something important in the town of beginnings, I won't be long." He said as he closed the front door behind him without another word. Asuna sighed in exasperation.

"He's the best in the world at doing that," After her words, the four of them laughed together.

* * *

Kirito appeared out of the portal in the center of the town of beginnings and made a beeline for the place he had left Toran at. After rounding the final corner, he laid eyes upon the empty park bench. Toran wasn't there. Kirito panicked for but a moment until he heard something behind him.

"Yo Kirito, over here," the voice said, Kirito whipped around and saw Toran in line at a weapons shop about a block away. The sight of that blonde haired boy made Kirito sigh with relief.

"You could've told me that you were awake," Kirito said with a relieving sigh.

"Yeah, sorry. Kinda got distracted," Toran apologized with a goofy smile. Kirito looked up at the weapons shop sign.

"What are planning on buying?" he asked

"Anything really. I just need something the replace this dagger I have. Can't rely on spells all the time, right?" He pointed out. As the line became short enough for them the enter the store, Kirito decided to help Toran decide what would best fit him.

"So, are you leaning more to the tank side or the nimble side?" He questioned. To which Toran gave some thought.

"I don't really see myself as the kind of person who deals massive amounts of damage in one swing, but on the other hand, I'm definitely not an agile person." He was half talking to Kirito, half talking to himself there. Kirito considered his dilemma and after a quick thought, gave a solution.

"How about a one-handed sword and shield then?" He said as he led Toran over to the sword and shield area of the store "You don't have to deal too much damage in one blow and you don't have to run around that much either," Toran thought it over for a bit so Kirito continued to sell the idea. "Plus, it's not like you have to stick with it. Try it out for a while and if it's not your thing, we can come back and try something else." To this, Toran made his decision.

"Sword and shield it is then," Toran exclaimed as he went to purchase the short but slightly fat sword along with the Viking-like circular shield, but hesitated for a moment. "Wait, do I even have enough cor to buy this?"

"Well, it's about seventy thousand cor all up so I'll chip in a little this time," Kirito said as he gifted forty thousand cor to Toran.

"Seriously? Thanks so much, man!" Toran bowed his head in thanks "I promise next time I'll pay for it fully!" Kirito couldn't help but giggle at Toran's goofiness before unintentionally thinking back to that battle in the room with the floating rocks. The weird attack that Toran had used to eliminate all those Earth Hounds. He couldn't help but picture that emotionless look that Toran had the moment he activated it. Kirito's expression grimaced unintentionally as he thought about it. Luckily, Toran hadn't noticed cause he was buying his new sword and shield and it wasn't until Toran called out to him that he snapped out of his thoughts. "Kirito! Look at my new weapons!" Toran gloated as he swung his new sword around without caution. Kirito decided to bury those thoughts as he walked over to Toran (who had now accidentally knocked a shelf over and sent its contents flying) but had an inkling that there would soon be a day when those thoughts would have to come out.

* * *

 **Again, i apologise for the short chapter, i just wanted you all to know that this story is back and will start being update sort of regularly once i get far enough into the story.**

 **LOOK FORWARD TO IT AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE**

pls excuse all spelling mistakes, proof-reading ain't my strong point.


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